NEWS ADVISORY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 11, 2000

Law Office of Jonathan Levy Tel. (513) 528-0586 E Mail: jlevy1@cinci.rr.com

Ukrainians ask for share of Hungarian Gold Train Treasure

In May 1945, forces of the American Army seized a train in the town of Werfen, Austria containing treasure carried out of Hungary by members of the pro-Nazi Hungarian government in an attempt to escape the advancing Soviet Army. This train carrying gold, jewelry, art and other treasures became known as the Gold Train. Hungarian sources believe the fifty-two railroad cars of valuables belonged to Jews, Hungarian gentry, and the fascist Hungarian government.

U.S. military personnel recognized from the beginning that the art and cultural property assets of the Gold Train were valuable and impressive and could be used in their offices and homes. In addition to "requisitions" by U.S. forces, property on the Gold Train was also subject to outright theft. In one case, documented in October 1946, two suitcases of gold dust disappeared from a United States Army warehouse.

Fascist Hungary’s army along with their Nazi allies occupied Ukraine, committed atrocities and looted property there. Between 1939 and 1945, Hungary occupied Ukrainian Transcarpathia, oppressed the Ukrainian population and massacred the Jewish population before the Soviet Army could liberate the region. The Ukrainian minority in Northern Yugoslavia was also harassed by Hungarian occupiers.

Three organizations representing the interests of Ukrainian and Jewish victims of the Second World War, The International Union of Former Juvenile Prisoners of Fascism, Ukrainian Union of Nazi Victims and Prisoners, and the Organization of Ukrainian Antifascist Resistance Fighters have asked the United States government to account for that portion of the gold train assets belonging to victims in Ukraine. In a recent letter to the organizations’ American attorney, Jonathan Levy, from the Executive Director of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets in the United States, Kenneth Klothen, it was admitted that there is little information about the origin of the gold train and that an investigation is ongoing.

The World Federation of Hungarians has estimated the value of the missing treasure as being worth over two hundred million dollars in 1945 and worth many more times that in present value.